Hi.

Jan 18 The best ever salad - spinach, broad bean & feta

Ok, so that's a big call and contingent on you actually liking the ingredients. I have taken this recipe from BBC Good Food and adapted it to be made with quinoa & bulgar wheat instead of cous cous (my mortal enemy), and also halved the amount of feta as it really doesn't need a whole 200 grams.

Spinach, broad bean & feta salad

Ingredients:

120g quinoa & bulgar wheat (I use the mix from Waitrose but you could just use quinoa)

300g frozen broad beans

125g spinach leaves

20g pack fresh mint

85g green olives

100g pack feta cheese

Prepare the quinoa - if you've never made it before, it is really simple and easier than rice to get right. Add to boiling water and cook for 12 minutes. Once the seed has split (it will have curls through it), it's done. Tip it out into a sieve and then it steam for a while, forking it through every few minutes so it doesn't get gluggy.

While you're cooking the quinoa, cook the broad beans - from frozen they should take about 5 minutes. Drain and cool, or keep warm if you like.

Put spinach in a colander and pour over a 1/4 or 1/2 a kettle (depending on how wilted you want your spinach to be).

Stir everything together - just make sure you crumble in the feta over the top.

You can drizzle over some olive oil, or lemon as well if you like.

Serves 4

This salad is great as a side for dinner with steak, chicken, fish - anything really - and with these quantities you will have enough for lunch the next day. It's a really nice cold salad too so it wins on every front - you can have this on the table within about 15 minutes I reckon.

Please let me know if you make it and let me know if you love it as much as I do!